Article:		It Doesn't Pay to be Popular
Subject:		Bittorrent guarantee identical to direct download
Date:		2003-05-30 22:58:36
From:		anonymous2
BitTorrent confirms that the resulting files match the description in the torrent file. If you distribute the torrent file from your site, then you have the same level of assurance about the resulting files as you do for a direct download from your site. BitTorrent would have been an excellent choice for you.

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• Bittorrent guarantee identical to direct download
  2003-05-31 09:04:16  eggboard [Reply | View]
  
  
  That's not exactly what I was writing about: if you distribute the file directly and have it distributed through the system, yes; but people downloading have no assurance that any file named X is the same file as X. You see what I mean? If you don't know the author, and there's no trust mechanism that currently allows you to "know" an author, then you don't know whether a file originated from the author who is distributing it or not.
  
  Someone could take our book PDF, add a virus, bundle it up, and name it "Real_World_Adobe_GoLive_6.pdf.exe".
  
  BitTorrent isn't an excellent choice at the moment for the reasons I cited: people can be fired, suspended, or expelled for using ANY P2P in many places, and our likely reader base wouldn't use a program like BitTorrent for reasons of obscurity (they're not in that community of people who know what P2P is) or job security.